Grandpa Charlie: Part I

Charlie E. McCray

I've mentioned before that my husband, Dave, has Confederate roots.  Since we've been married I've heard his grandfather, Brooks, tell (and repeat) many stories about the McCray family and  what Brooks describes as "a lineage that's pretty hard to beat!"

Of all the ancestors in all the stories he's told (and retold), Dave's great-great-great-grandfather, Charlie McCray, is (so far) my favorite character.

Charles Edward McCray was born in Lewis County, Virginia (now West Virginia) on August 21, 1842 to Robert and Margaret McCray, a Scottish family in rural West Virginia.  He fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War, survived starvation in a Union prison camp, walked more than 400 miles to reenlist after his release, and he lived to be 99-and-a-half years old.

His longevity is why his story is so vivid - Brooks knew his great-grandfather Charlie personally until he was 11 years old, when Charlie finally passed away.  "I don’t have to find out from a tourist what happened at Gettysburg, I sat in the room with my great-grandfather who was there!" Brooks said.  "He was in 17 battles in the Civil War! He was in Antietam! He was in Gettysburg!"  

Charlie was 18, almost 19, when the Civil War began in 1861.  The McCrays were a Confederate family - so much so that the face and signature of Charlie's great-uncle, Jonathan Bennett, was on the $5 Virginia Treasury Note.  Charlie was one of seven sons and, to their mother's pride, all seven of the McCray boys served as soldiers for the Confederacy; remarkably, of those seven, only one died as a result of the war.

Jonathan Bennett, a distant uncle to my husband

Charlie's oldest brother, James, was a 42-year-old Methodist preacher at the start of the war.  By January of 1862, James was a Captain in the Confederate army (Co.5, Virginia State Rangers) and was forming a local militia unit.  During that time, the Mace family, neighbors in the Hacker Valley, had their home and larder raided by Union soldiers.  Hearing of this,  McCray and two comrades, Ebenezer Mace and Elias Snyder, decided to retaliate.  On January 13th, they hid themselves in a cluster of boulders on top of a wooded hill with an aim to ambush the raiders.

However, the northerners were somehow forewarned, and surprised the three men from behind.  Mace was wounded, but managed to escape with Snyder; James had been shot in the knee and was unable to flee.  The Yankees then killed Cpt. James McCray there at the boulders with his own rifle.  Two of his sisters, Eliza and Rebecca, later retrieved James' body and buried him on their brother Evan's nearby farm.  James burial was the first interment at the McCray Cemetery, and the boulders where he was killed were called the James McCray Rocks; both can still be found today down a pitted dirt road in the middle of the West Virginia woods, with the memorial markers that Dave's grandfather, Brooks, helped to dedicate.

Cpt. James McCray's Headstone

Charlie fought in the Civil War as a foot soldier for the Confederate army and participated in historic battles.  In September of 1862, just a few months after his brother's death, Charlie was one of the tens of thousands of men at the Battle of Antietam.  In July of 1863, Charlie also fought in the Battle of Gettysburg.

In 1864, Charlie was captured by northerners and spent some time in Elmira Prison, a prisoner-of-war camp in Elmira, New York.  One in four of those incarcerated  in "Hellmira" ended up dying, and young Charlie was starved so badly his hip bones stuck out.  

Charlie was fortunate enough to survive the experience - a few months after his incarceration, there was a prisoner exchange and Charlie was one of the lucky  ones, emaciated but freed.  When they released him "they looked at him and said, 'If you leave here, you will die,'" Brooks recounted.  "But he was an old Scot, and he said, 'If I stay here, I’ll die!'"

Home was more than 400 miles away, and his clothes were baggy on his thin malnourished body.  But, having no other way to get home, Charlie cinched his belt and walked the whole way, all +400 miles from Elmira, New York to central West Virginia.  More than once he spent his nights in the woods, and on one occasion woke up to a mountain lion sniffing his face (he played dead and the lion left him alone).  

After surviving battles that tens of thousands of men had died in, after months of starvation in a prisoner-of-war camp, and after walking 400 miles over both enemy and rugged terrain, Charlie miraculously made it back home in one piece.

He rested for six months.  But at the end of those six months, the war still had not ended.  So he put on his grey uniform again and he reenlisted, not knowing he'd be a witness to the final battle of the Civil War.

(Continue to Part II)

SIMILAR STORIES

Grandpa
Charlie
Part II

Brooks &
Rena Elope

Extra
Protein

The Graham Cracker Incident

(Source)

In my family, there are two things legendary about my sister: her luck, and her willpower.

One favorite story illustrates the latter with a simple graham cracker.

According to my mother, I was never spanked for the same thing twice.  "You were such an easy baby," she always croons.

And then there's my little sister, Natalie, five years my junior.  "She would've been our only child if she had been born first," my father always grumbles.  Whereas I would respond to a single spanking, my sister in her Terrible Twos would have to be spanked three, four, even five times for the same offense. 

And to add insult to her stubbornness, she would refuse to cry when spanked.  After my mother set down the spatula, my sister would look back at her impassively, as though to say, "That all you got?"  My mother, sobbing, would call my father at the office, wailing, "I don't think she'll ever learn!"

Natalie was lucky she was cute.  Our parents often say that her giant brown eyes and Shirley Temple curls were the only things that saved her skin.

She was quite the cantankerous tot.  Until her tiny iron will was finally broken.

But she didn't go lightly.

The story goes that, just after dinner, my sister was sitting at the table in her high chair.  And, holding out her small chubby fist to my parents, she said, "Gam cacka!"

"Graham cracker?"

"Yes!"

"Say 'please'."

At this unsanctioned demand, my sister frowned and pursed her fat cheeks, withdrawing her hand to her chest, and with scandalized gusto, said:

"NO."

"Then no graham cracker."

She cried and screamed.  She whined and pouted.  My parents didn't budge.  So she went to Plan B, shaking the arms of her high chair and whimpering, "Down!  Down!"

"Not until you say 'please'."

"NO."

"Then you can't get down yet."

Oh, how she cried.

And oh, how she refused.

And thus began the battle of wills.

My mother took the first 20-minute shift, stubbornly running the same script with her tiny willful offspring.

"Do you want a graham cracker?"

"Yes!"

"Say 'please'."

"NO."

Crying. General melodrama.  Rattling the high chair.

"Down!  Down!"

"Not until you say 'please'."

"NO."

"Then you can't get down yet."

More crying.

Over and over and over again.  Twenty minutes passed, and my mother threw up her hands.  "I'm gonna throttle her - your turn," and my father took the second shift.

Every atom in my two-year-old sister's being would rather sit in that high chair and WIN than have that graham cracker.

"Do you want a graham cracker?"

"Yes!"

"Say 'please'."

"NO."

Wailing. Flailing curls and arms. Kicking the high chair.

"Down!  Down!"

"Not until you say 'please'."

"NO."

"Then you can't get down yet."

More wailing.

Over and over and over again.

Forty minutes gone.  My father reached his limit and turned it back to my mother.

"Say 'please'."

"NO."

Another twenty minutes passed.

Sixty minutes gone.

An hour of "NO".

She would not give up.

It's unclear who was in the hot seat when the miracle occurred, but finally, finally, whatever it was, something clicked.

Wearily, they asked again, "Natalie, do you want a graham cracker?"

"Yes."

"Say 'please'."

She hesitated, slumped down in her high chair.  And then, with her chubby cheeks puffed out, her chin tucked into her chest, she sighed and reached out a pudgy little hand, saying:

"Peas."

I'm sure my parents' eyes bugged out - it was a Christmas miracle, on par with raising Lazarus from the dead.

After the shock passed, Natalie was praised for her obedience and then unbuckled from her high chair.  She toddled happily away, curls bouncing, with a graham cracker tucked into her tiny fist.

"She finally got it.  It was like night and day after that," my father always says with a snap of his fingers. "You would never know it was the same child."


SIMILAR STORIES

Extra
Protein

Fffettucine
Alfffredo

"But it's
Vera"

Special K Loaf

This story is a particular favorite in my family.

When my father was still a child, and all four of my grandparents' children were still living at home, my Nana's cooking had a spurt of vegetarianism. Her most memorably misguided attempt was a recipe she found on the back of a box of Special K breakfast cereal. The recipe was a vegetarian substitute for meatloaf named Special K loaf.

Here are the ingredients for Special K loaf:

1 large chopped onion
2 T onion soup mix
1 large carton of cottage cheese
1 cup chopped walnuts
Chopped celery, if desired
5 eggs, beaten
and
5 cups Special K cereal

Truthfully, there's no comparing it to a meatloaf recipe. The closest comparison could be described as replacing the hamburger with a blend of walnuts, breakfast cereal and cottage cheese.

Surprisingly, it was not a popular dish.

At that time, my grandfather worked 9 to 5 at Goodyear. He was home by 5:15, and was at the table at 5:25 for dinner. And at 5:26 one night, my grandmother lays this beauteous loaf of glop in the middle of the table with a proud smile.

To my grandfather's credit, and to the credit of my father and his siblings, they all ate a piece that night. Then my grandfather, rarely one to stand against my Nana, laid down his fork and declared, "I never want to eat this ever again."

A couple of weeks went by, and my Nana either forgot the mandate or figured the dish was misunderstood and everyone would like it if she made it just one more time.

So, at 5:15, my grandfather walks in the door and takes off his hat. At 5:25, he and the children sat at the table. And at 5:26 my Nana, with a smile and a flourish, placed the Special K loaf in front of my grandfather.

As the story goes, my grandfather was quiet for a moment. He looked at the loaf, looked at his plate, looked again at the baked lump of cereal and cottage cheese. Then he sighed, putting his hands on the edge of the table. "Alright," he said, and pushed back his chair as he stood up. "I am going to Giuseppi's Pizza. Who's coming with me?"

A few moments later, after a frantic scraping of chair legs, my Nana was left alone in the kitchen with her Special K loaf.

And, to my Nana's credit, she never made Special K loaf again.


SIMILAR STORIES

"But it's
Vera"

Extra
Protein

Fffettucine
Alfredo